Better than the David Caruso Movie

Tap-Repeatedly’s Week Old News Service continues (I’ve been busy) with the alert that long-time Ubisoft producer and Assassin’s Creed project honchette Jade Raymond has been tapped to run the company’s new Toronto studio.

Here’s the frustrating thing about Jade Raymond – no, not that Assassin’s Creed was a crappy game, the other frustrating thing: despite deserving it, she will never be taken seriously by this industry; despite all her successes, despite her intelligence and capability, despite the fact that she’s absolutely qualified for this promotion, just as she is qualified to manage 200-person project teams on huge international releases. No matter how many times she succeeds (it sucked, but Assassin’s Creed moved 12 million units), no matter her level of commitment or effort, she’ll always be Jade Raymond first, and a games industry professional second.

Because Jade Raymond is hot. Look at her. Supermodel-hot? Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on your perspective; but few could argue that she’s a very attractive young woman. The fact that she’s pleasant, intelligent and articulate (in two languages!) doesn’t hurt. Fact is, women in the games business are still comparatively infrequent occurrences. Attractive ones less so. Ones so attractive that companies like Ubisoft can leverage that attractiveness to drive attention toward specific products? That’s blue moon material. But is it fair? Is it right?

What bothers me is that Raymond isn’t some hand puppet. She’s got a degree in computer science from McGill U, she was a line coder for Sony Playstation and helped found Sony’s initial R&D group. She’s lead teams for Crayola, EA, IBM, and – obviously – Ubi. She’s got game, she’s got cred. And yet all anyone can seem to talk about is her looks; in fact, when Assassin’s Creed, admittedly shitty, came out, it was rapidly followed by an underground online comic that basically said that you’d get a blowjob from the Ubi producer if you bought the game. Said comic sprawled across the entire interwebs when Ubi lawyers were mindbogglingly stupid enough to attempt to destroy it with a cease & desist, and for a while Raymond and Assassin’s Creed-based oral sex were the talk of the town.

Meanwhile Spore, equally disappointing, gets Will Wright opportunities to interview leading biologists on NPR. Raymond, on the other hand, is gossiped about as dating Sony’s Phil Harrison… though at least most sites had the decency to mock it. Nonetheless, do we not see a disparity there? Between a funny-looking dude who made a bad game getting the opportunity to demonstrate that video game makers are intellectual people fascinated by many things, and a beautiful female who made a crap game getting accused of whoredom and pasted on who’s dating who websites?

For as far as we’ve come, in so many ways, it also reminds me how far we have to go before genuine equality is reached. In fact, I find myself wondering if it will ever be reached at all. Here I am, railing against the mistreatment of someone with perfect qualifications for the jobs she’s done who also happens to be attractive and female, yet to be perfectly blunt the first thing I think when I see Jade Raymond is “gosh, she’s pretty.” How can we manage to achieve true parity between the sexes when even the people who want it have a hard time getting past the initial colonial reaction?

When the blowjob comic came out, Jane Pinckard of Game Girl Advance posted a thoughtful article in defense of Raymond, one that took Ubisoft to task for manipulating Raymond’s image to sell copies of Assassin’s Creed, and that reminded us how much farther this industry in particular has to go when it comes to treatment of women. Amusingly, Jane Pinckard is also a very good-looking, intelligent, articulate, skilled woman in the games industry. I imagine given what they’re likely to endure on blogs and message boards each day, such specimens are wise to stick together; but there’s nothing about Pinckard’s article that suggests she’s doing it as a “favor” to another pretty girl. No, she’s pissed that women are still treated this way, and so should we all be; in their chosen industry, Raymond, Pinckard, and other XXs face an even uphillier battle than most, and it’s an uphill battle under the best of circumstances.

I like Ubisoft, though I have bashed its recent games, from Prince of Persia and its Epilogue to Far Cry 2; I never got around to ridiculing the company for putting World in Conflict developer Massive onto MMO duty when the developer has zero experience in that field. I like Ubisoft because of its talent pool, particularly in Montreal – people like Clint Hocking and Patrick Redding, and Jade Raymond, people who really seem committed to trying new things even if it means getting them oh so desperately wrong.

But that’s from a games perspective. Ubi is – as Jane Pinckard reminds us – responsible for the Frag Dolls; and Ubi unquestionably used Jade Raymond’s looks to their advantage when pimping Assassin’s Creed. It makes them money. What bothers me is that when it comes to this tap to head her own studio, Raymond undoubtedly is qualified, and almost certainly deserving. But no one will ever be convinced that the promotion was the result of anything other than the exterior, even if she drives the place to success after success. And whose fault is that? Ours, as much as Ubi’s. What bugs me most is that it’s so built in now that we might never be able to move beyond it.

About the author

Tap-Repeatedly Overlord Steerpike is a games industry journalist and consultant. His earliest memories are of video games, and hopes his last memories will be of them as well. He’s a featured monthly columnist with the International Game Developers Association, and is internationally published in an assortment of dull e-Learning texts and less dull gaming publications. He also lectures on games at various universities.

5 Responses to Better than the David Caruso Movie

wds09/06/2009

“But no one will ever be convinced that the promotion was the result of anything other than the exterior, even if she drives the place to success after success.”

I’d say speak for yourself. To head a studio one needs some serious chops. I never really understood the Jade Raymond thing myself. Okay she’s a hot woman, plenty more where that came from, right? The gaming media is just making the same mistake any media make: they see a juicy story, and they jump on it, making it something it’s not. But now they have a “controversy” that they can write op-eds about endlessly.

Now I’m not saying her looks might not have played a role in her career btw. Scientific studies have shown that attractive people do have it easier (note that, people, works for men too). They have more succesful careers, make more money, etc compared to their similarly qualified, but less attractive, counterparts. That’s unfortunate that our society cares so much about looks that they would play such a role in our personal success.

wds, the whole point I was trying to make is that Raymond earned this position. Ubi is not going to hand a multi-million dollar studio over to some brainless spokesmodel. In terms of education and sheer experience, she outpaces any number of male studio heads.

The complaint I make is that every time Jade is mentioned it’s in the context of her being an attractive woman first and everything else second. Kotaku can’t bring her up without first stating that she “smells flowery.” Other news sites typically run with “The beautiful Jade Raymond will be…” My point was that, though complimentary, it is in fact demeaning to her capabilities as a human being.

Chris Avellone’s a good looking guy. Cliff Bleszinski too, if you dig tattoos. The Yerli brothers wouldn’t win a galaxy-wide ugly contest. And yet no one begins an article with “steaming hot hunk of man-meat Chris Avellone’s studio is about to release…”

That’s what I’m trying to say – speaking for myself.

Gregg B09/09/2009

Your point with Chris Avellone, Cliff Bleszinski etc is valid until you consider that gaming is primarily male orientated so that partly explains why “steaming hot hunk of man-meat” isn’t said much. I don’t see nearly as many female gamers reading let alone writing as much gaming editorial over the interwebs as their male counterparts. Obviously that still doesn’t explain why many ‘lol-ed’ over that not-even-funny-in-a-crude-way web comic of Jade.

Jades image has revealed a shameful immaturity in our industry which is far more unsettling than our perception of how and why she has risen to the top.

Good points, Gregg. In fact that last line of your comment summed up exactly what I was thinking with this article – it’s unfair that her qualifications take second place to the industry’s (and the fanbase’s) willingness to objectify.

Gregg B05/05/2010

Bloody hell, I don’t even remember commenting on this article… I raised some good points.